Unlocking Storytelling for Psychologists: Tabletop Role-Playing Games as Methodological Empowerment Tools for Psychological Support

Storytelling promotes introspection, empathy, and emotional connections, engaging all sensory modalities and stimulating mental imagery. These narrative capacities are stimulated and deepened in tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), where players create characters and shared stories. In recent years, TTRPGs have found increasingly relevant psychological applications, proving useful for addressing emotional difficulties and developing social skills. "Dungeons and Dragons" has been one of the first TTRPGs utilized in therapy, with recent studies demonstrating its effectiveness in reducing anxiety and depression, while also contributing to the reinforcement of personal mastery and satisfaction. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a clear and structured methodology that fully leverages TTRPGs for psychological support while ensuring greater transparency and scientific rigor.